WATCHWORD:
7 cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Phil 4:4-7
8b whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Phil 4:8-9
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13
5Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And, lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
Meditation:
Favorites
Favorite passages from the Bible. We all have them. Maybe it was a passage that we memorized when we were a child and it stuck with us, taking on real meaning when we became adults and we drew closer to our Lord.
The Proverbs passage was a favorite of Glenn Hawkins, a long-time member of Men in Mission, the men’s Bible Study group at our church. He spoke of how meaningful it was to him at an especially difficult moment in his life. That testimony had an impact on my life and the lives of others.
Philippians 4:13 is a passage that touched the lives of so many of my friends and loved ones over the years when strength to overcome difficulty was needed. That passage had power to calm and to bring courage in the face of overwhelming odds.
What Bible passages do you favor? When do you call to mind the Words of God? Is it for comfort? For strength? For direction? Is it in times of severe pain, heart attack, a diagnosis where hope is thin and you wonder where to turn?
The cry, “I need help with me”, cited recently here, is not found in the Bible, yet its meaning and our motivation is on almost every page. In fact, we turn to the Bible, to God, as our hole card, our insurance, our backup, our fallback, our just-in-case, our all-in-all.
Wait a minute. Do you see a pattern? Re-read the first five paragraphs. What do you see? The pattern is there. The Word of God in times of need, of threat, of insecurity, aloneness, loss, depression, worry, grief, etc. Yes, our comfort does lie in the Word of God, the promises of God, the assurances of God. The peace that comes from God.
All that is true, but that is not the whole story. My hope every moment of each day, my hope through the ups and downs, my hope through the easy routine of my day is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. Yes, that is called faith, belief. The firm realization that we can call on God anytime, all the time, in all circumstances. Have you ever felt a sadness when people, carrying extra heavy burdens, enter your life and do not have Jesus in their theirs? I believe we all have, and we nudge them, we witness, we plant seeds and we pray for them. Do we worry about them, or do we pray “Into Your Hands Lord, I commit my friend” and know it will be so? Yes, we often do.
So, let’s say you have a friend who is a real skeptic and he is taking all this in and he turns to you, saying, “Oh, I see, it’s the profit motive. You are looking for a payoff, a bail out. This God of yours, you call on him like you would call on your daddy if you got into trouble. He’s your State Farm agent, huh? When you don’t know what to do and you don’t have friends to call on, you dial him up. I’ve got a fender-bender here, God. Wow that’s pretty good. But, what happens if you don’t have trouble? Does he have any value at all for you, what then?”
With friends like that… The message of scripture is important to us, and they hold value and they may get us through troubled waters, but that is not where it ends. The passage is not just a passage, like a clever saying you might find in a Dove piece wrapper. The passage is the Word of God and it reminds us who has the power over this world, including our situation.
What that skeptic friend may have missed is a little phrase we tend to skip over in some of our readings. We find it in Matthew and Mark, and so many others, using different words. Let me help you with this —
Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ Matthew 17:20
“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Mark 11:23
What Glen Hawkins explained to our group, back then, was that the most important parts of that passage to him were the trust in and the acknowledgement of God. For him, it was the drawing closer to the Almighty.
So, what is your favorite passage? What is there about that passage that has drawn you? Does it bring you closer to God? Yes. When you consider those words, it is a prayer, it is calling on your Father, the King of the Universe, your Lord and Savior, and the mountain will move. Amen.
Stan
Closing Prayer:
(Often hymns are prayers set to music.)
Dear Heavenly Father, my hope is built on nothing less than the blood of your dear Son, Jesus and the righteousness that I lean on each hour of every day. He is my solid rock on which I stand when all around me there is chaos and trouble. Your Grace is unchanging, Lord, even in the face of storms and when the sand I stand on seems to be sinking out from under me. You are my anchor, you are my hope. When You, Lord, shall come with trumpet sound may I always be found in You, dressed in Your righteousness alone, faultless to stand before Your throne. Amen.
